Nope, Wild Boar- and make your own damn fruit salad

Greetings from Centre Ville Limoux- Just another day in the Aude region. Did a nice ride in the wine country yesterday. I rode for just under 2 hours and saw 4 cars and 1 stop sign. Took the road to St. polycarpe and the banged a left toward St. Hillaire lots of up down with amazing views on tiny, very twisty roads. Road riding in Europe is unbelievably fun. I had an awesome view of the snow covered Pyrenees for the last 5km or so.

We had dinner last night in a restaurant in a tiny village about 50km outside of Limoux. I can’t wait to load the pics… everything we ate was made there. We had smoked bacon, various dried meats, Pate with figs, a salad with duck throat, frites, and WILD BOAR flambayed with old fat in the fireplace- amazing. We had some good local wine and the desert was amzing. We did the traditional Port- poured from a bizzare glass container that shot a stream of the liquor into your mouth- the further away you moved your arm from your mouth the stronger the stream and the faster it came out- it turned into a contest to see who could get it the furthest away, for the longest period of time- It came down to a battle between veteran Gina Grain and newbie Rebecca Much- I believe it was Much that won, but it was close. The battle would have raged on, but we drank the entire vessel of Port, and most of the Port from our astonished dining neighbors, who were kind enough to give us their’s. Joining us for dinner was a local artist and a few of his studends from Canada. They got a show- that’s for sure! They may have thought they were out with a bunch of rowdy, redneck NASCAR folk- not the sophisticated pedal pushers that we indeed are- Did I mention the chocolate cake? Un’ f’ n real- Real french food is soooooooo good. Anyway they also brought out a ginormous bowl of fruit. Ted thought it was to make your own fruit salad, so he starts cutting up all kinds of stuff and piling it on his plate- he had ordered a fruit salad, but some time had passed and they brought out this bowl full of fruit, so he assumed it was a make your own kinda thing- (huh?) anyway, 2 seconds after Ted cuts up a metric shit ton of fruit, his prepared fruit salad arrives- the fruit bowl, you see, was for anyone who might want a piece of fruit for desert instead of a delicous piece of 10,000kc cake or what not… it was pretty damn funny, but maybe you had to be there.

So. Today is Friday. It is raining. It is market day- and there are lots of people selling there things in the town square- including, but not limited to live chickens and rabbits- You can buy any kind of produce, olive, meat -live or dead- clothes, body jewelery, wallpaper- all kinds of stuff and it happens every Friday in Limoux. You better get there first thing if you want first pick- cuz, everybody goes.

That’s all for now. Sorry for the lack of pics but it will be a few more days until I have the cable……